object_editor - description of the graphic object editor capacities
As explained in the graphics_entities help file, Scilab graphics is now based on a brent new graphics mode. This mode allows the user to have more interaction with graphics before and after having them drawn. In the "new" mode, each graphics window and the drawing it contains are represented by hierchical entities. The hierachy top level is the Figure. Each Figure defines at least one child of type Axes. Each Axes entity contains a set of leaf entities which are the basic graphics objects like Polylines, Rectangles, Arcs, Segs,... It can also contain an Agregation type which are recursive sets of entities.
The main interest of the new graphic mode is to make property change easier. This new graphics'mode provides a set of high-level graphing routines (see set, get) used to control objects' properties such as data, coordinates and scaling, color and appearences without requiring to replay the initial graphics commands.
Graphics entities are associated to Scilab variables of type handle. The handle is a unique identifier which is associated to each instance of a created graphical entity. Using this handle, it will be possible to reach entities' properties through "set" and "get" routines. The handles are also used to manipulate graphics objects, to move them, to make copies or delete them.
To complete and use the graphics handle capacity at its maximum, a graphic object editor has been created too. It is a set of Tcl/Tk interfaces available for each kind of graphics objects (see graphics_entities for more details) that can be enabled for each graphic window. To make it work, select the Edit menu in the graphic window. Seven graphics editing operations are available :
The last four items are specially dedicated to the graphic editor :
Once the graphic interface is enabled, two main areas appear :
// Below is an example of the appearance of such an interface with objects of type Axes. // No images for now
graphics_entities, set, get, clf,
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